Fatality feeds frustration

The
most recent Barton Highway accident has sparked outcry from motorists in the
community fed up waiting for the highway to be upgraded to a dual carriageway.

A $500
million proposal to duplicate 33 kilometres of road from the Hume Highway at
Yass to the existing dual carriageway at the ACT border, bypassing
Murrumbateman, has laid stagnant for decades because of a lack of funding
commitment from the federal government.

Lobby
group, South East Australian Transport Strategy (SEATS), estimates traffic
volumes at 10,600 each day, with heavy vehicles making up more than 10 per cent
of the total.

It
said the AusLink national network rated the road as the worst highway in NSW
for safety in 2007.

Yass
Valley Mayor Rowena Abbey said the Barton issue was a constant problem. The
government had spent a "little bit of money straightening the curves"
but that it was not enough to stop the accidents.

"It's
a continuing frustration and nobody is committing to fund this," she told
the Tribune.

"It
has to be fixed, it doesn't matter which government [does it].

"There
is a disastrous rate of accidents and deaths on this road. Both governments to
date have chosen to ignore this road."

Tribune
readers have suggested the installation of point-to-point speed cameras at each
end of the Barton in the interim, to slow motorists down.

Motoring
lobby group NRMA regional director Alan Evans said the highway was of
particular concern with heavy traffic flows and predictions of traffic growth.
He said speed cameras could be effective up to a point, but building better
engineered roads or at least installing traffic dividers, were the best
options.

"Building
safer roads is the best contributing factor to reducing the road toll," he
told the Tribune.

"You
can take the bad curves out, and in that new section they did remove the worst
curves, but it still doesn't eliminate the problem... we've still got to look
at traffic separation as much as you can."

While
Europe and North America built many five-star roads, Australia's best road was
rated only four-star, and it was the country's only one.

"We
will continue to see head-on crashes on the Barton Highway [as long as it
remains undivided]." He suggested wire rope barriers down the centre and
widening of corners.

"Dividers
reduce fatalities and head-on crashes by about 90 per cent."